Two weeks of silence and an eye saved by Grazia Pertile at the Sacred Heart of Negrar, while as theologian I meditated: what a lack of humility can cause in men of science?

- pastoral care of health -

TWO WEEKS OF SILENCE AND AN EYE SAVED BY PERTILE GRACE TO THE SACRED HEART OF NEGRAR, WHILE I MEDITATED AS THEOLOGIST: WHAT CAN CAUSE THE LACK OF HUMILITY IN THE MEN OF SCIENCE?

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For this I thank God as a man of faith, priest and theologian: making me experience directly on my skin how high the virtue of Christian humility truly is. I understood this while I was memorizing the Roman Missal in Italian and Latin, scared that, even if a similar pathology had arisen in the healthy eye, the two beloved cats of Jorge Facio Lince and mine, Hypatia and Bruno, who live in the house with us, they should have learned to live with a German shepherd, who would wear a headband with a red cross, carrying me around the street with a white cane.

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Father Ariel S.. Levi di Gualdo at the entrance to the Sacred Heart Hospital of Negrar in front of the mosaic depicting San Giovanni Calabria, founder of the work

This article I could have owned it: Reflections on my skin. Basically the best, because it is one thing to contemplate with surreal fideism a beautiful ivory crucifix that makes art and useless emotional tenderness, an account to end up participating, even to a small extent, to the crucifixion of Christ, the only way to live the true faith, which is not emotional sentimentality, it would be enough to understand the words of the Divine Master who teaches: "If anyone wants to come after me, disown yourself, take up his cross every day and follow me " (LC 9, 23).

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In the last two years I was active on all fronts: I have written many articles on The Island of Patmos, published new books (cf.. WHO), video-conferencing product, teacher's lessons (cf.. WHO), participated in television programs on the Mediaset networks. Last in series order White area the 19 May led by Giuseppe Brindisi (see WHO by the minute 01:35 following), where I will be a guest again on 9 June. but yet, behind all this hyper activity, there was something serious, to the point of inducing me to think that I had to produce as much as possible, because maybe one day I would no longer be able to do certain jobs. I even memorized the entire Roman Missal in two languages, Italian and Latin, in case one day I wasn't able to read anymore ...

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What happened? This: in July of 2019 an injury to the retina of my right eye appears. It would have been necessary to intervene with an immediate "cerclage", but believing they were doing me good they practiced a mending with laser. After a month there is a total detachment of the retina and the eye remains completely blind. The retina is then surgically reattached, after the recommended and chosen surgeon informed me: «On a risk scale from zero to ten, she is at risk eleven ".

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the surgeon and retinal researcher Grazia Pertile, director of the ophthalmology department of the Sacred Heart Hospital in Negrar, San Giovanni Calabria Foundation

The intervention is successful, even if performed - which I will discover a year later - with an outdated technique, but not for this ineffective. Even today I am grateful to the surgeon who glued my retina back on. Of course, despite having done it privately using my health insurance policy, I was operated on a kind of "chair" with local anesthesia practiced through a puncture in the eye that I do not wish even for a smuggler who transports human beings from Africa to the Italian coasts with serious risk to the lives of women and children. So I thought it worked, to the point that I didn't bother to ask: … But in this splendid five-star hotel-style private clinic, you don't even have a shred of anesthetist? Money, you spend them all in the interior furnishings to throw smoke in the eyes of the Ladies and Gentlemen of the beautiful society who come to get the cosmetic surgery touch-ups?

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The fact is illustrated in broad lines, it is useless to detail the clinical procedure, because I intend to talk about something else. I only specify that everything was aggravated by a haemorrhage in the eye that occurred due to natural causes during the operating session, which caused the damage to the photoreceptors, ie the cells of the retina that allow focusing. With the right eye, with which I saw only crooked shadows, I couldn't read and write. All made worse by an "extensive membrane" that formed a few months later on the retina.

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The surgeon who operated on me and reattached the retina, undoubtedly saving my eye from total blindness, he took care not to expose my state, which for nearly two years I ignored, after being liquidated with a verdict on which I had made a good reason: "More than this the eye will not be able to recover".

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the surgeon and retinal researcher Grazia Pertile, director of the ophthalmology department of the Sacred Heart Hospital in Negrar, San Giovanni Calabria Foundation

A very dear friend, one of several Roman clinicians with whom they are in close friendship, man of great science and experience, he himself accompanied me to an authentic international authority in the field of retinal surgery. After a series of in-depth examinations, the eminent clinician examined my eye with the manual lens for about half an hour and calmly and mercilessly gave me the whole story: from the mending laser to be avoided until the intervention is carried out well, the haemorrhage that had been silenced and so on. Concluded the great expert in retinal surgery: "Personally, in this already very treated eye, I would not put my hand to it, because the less you touch the better, But …".

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Needless to say: an eminent scholar of the retina and a great leader, he could tell me in front of a couple of his student surgeons that someone else might be able to do what they would not have dared to do out of understandable prudence? That simple "but ..." was enough to let me indirectly understand what cannot always be said directly. However, I am also a student of a long-time diplomat in the service of the Holy See, who in the field of diplomacy has educated me properly in long years of filial relationship.

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Time ago my dentist's husband had spoken to me in tones of wonder about Doctor Grazia Pertile, director of the ophthalmology department of the Sacred Heart Hospital in Negrar, San Giovanni Calabria Foundation, in the province of Verona (cf.. WHO). This distinguished specialist and well-known researcher of European fame, had saved his eye later 7 surgery performed in a disastrous way by renowned surgeons, or at least of fame on the cards… political. And the damage that was caused to him was such that from evening to morning he operated on it urgently, while the eye was now about to go into necrosis. My decision, jump in the car and in June of 2020 I go to Negrar where I pay a visit with Doctor Mauro Sartore, who reveals himself to me as an angel of God and who after all the necessary tests tells me that the damage to the photoreceptors is currently irreversible, but by removing the extensive retinal membrane and correcting the previous surgery, vision can significantly improve. In October, I am visited by Doctor Grazia Pertile who reaffirms the diagnosis of her collaborator and offers me the intervention, also because otherwise, the eye, it would have been doomed to total blindness within a few years or more.

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Mauro Sartore, retinal surgeon of the staff of Grazia Pertile, ophthalmology department of the Sacred Heart Hospital of Negrar, San Giovanni Calabria Foundation

The 24 May I made the pre-admission, the 25 I was operated on and the 26 resigned. I then went to Lake Maggiore with my friends de The Island of Patmos Enrico and Liliana, who gave me days of splendid convalescence in their villa. I write this article today, in my hotel room in Valpolicella, after having carried out the post-operative check-up this morning with Doctor Mauro Sartore.

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When I walked into the operating room to Negrar, before my eyes one appeared team fully composed of several people, with all due respect to the no-roast smoke of a private clinic that in the outer frame looked like a five-star hotel, where, however, they shot me a puncture in the eye to give me a local anesthesia. A completely different story at the Sacred Heart of Negrar, where lying on the cot, not on some kind of armchair, no one approached me wild pointer, but the anesthetist who gave me total anesthesia, during which I was also intubated. I remember falling asleep while acting: I thank God Almighty and you, brothers, because I have sinned exceedingly in thought, verb, works, and omissions (I confess to almighty God and to you brothers, that I have sinned much in thoughts, words, works and omissions ...) and that I woke up saying "Jesus Christ be praised» (Praised be Jesus Christ). And a few days later I fully understood how much I had to praise Jesus Christ.

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A few days after surgery, with the eye still clouded, I already see all the perfectly straight lines and outlines. I distinguish and read the characters of the large letters, those of the billboards, signs and book covers, that before I did not see or read.

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The Doctor Grazia Pertile she is a very reserved woman, pronounces a few words. His is a job that is not done with words, useful and indispensable for other kinds of scientific practices. It's a job, his, of pure action, an authentic operating room monster with a more unique than rare dexterity. It is I who have always been in close contact with the most delicate spheres of the human being, I immediately understood the kind of blue-eyed angel I was in front of. So I just played on his name, pulling out of theAve Maria only two but incisive words: «Full of Grace» (full of grace). Yup, I greet you Woman full of grace, able to truly put to good use the extraordinary grace that God has placed in your hands.

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Entrance to the Sacred Heart Hospital of Negrar with the statue of San Giovanni Calabria

Lours Patmos Island hasn't published any articles in the last few weeks because it coincides with me, our Capuchin editor Father Ivano Liguori also had health problems that led to fifteen days of hospitalization. A month and a half ago he suffered from right migraine pain with ipsilateral tingling paresthesias and ptosis in the right eye, who required hospitalization in neurology for thorough investigations, having been a patient with two autoimmune diseases for about four years, one to the kidneys (an interstitial nephritis) and one to the liver (a primary biliary cholangitis). Like this, Father Ivano and me, from one end of Italy to the other we have been absorbed by health events. Meanwhile, Father Ivano continued neurological tests for days to keep ptosis in his right eye under control, improved but not fully resolved yet, I was about to carry out surgery on the retina of my right eye, occurred through a hospitalization of only two and a half days, which, however, involved preparation and convalescence. This has been our situation for the past few weeks, we make it public today to clarify our silence, adding to the whole a very positive fact: in the month of May dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary, eighty million visits to our magazine were exceeded during the last four years of publishing and publishing activity. Even more so, do not think that the Devil had to somehow put a hand in it?

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Telling this story of mine it almost involved a violence exerted on myself. Each of us has the right to their own privacy. However, this story of mine is the paradigm of a very ancient human drama that we all have to deal with ever since Adam and Eve committed original sin., which I remember was a sin of pride, so serious as to alter the perfect balance of the world created by God, but above all of man himself, made in the image and likeness of the Divine Creator, who previously did not know about physical decay, the illness, pain, old age and death, all consequences of that great sin of rebellion, of that pride of which the lack of humility has always been the favorite daughter.

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research on the artificial retina conducted by Grazia Pertile

From bricklayer to designer, from the plumber to the carpenter, from the manager at the chef and go on to follow, when man is faced with something he is unable to do, often begins by saying: "It is not possible, It can not be done". I do not say almost always or of practice, but often those who respond in this way know very well that certain things are possible to do. But for no reason would he admit that others are capable of doing what he is unable to do. Of course, however serious they may be, the damages or incapacities of certain craftsmen and technicians are almost always limited. However, when attitudes of similar pride generating blind lack of humility are put in place by an oncologist or a surgeon, what can happen? Our Capuchin editor Father Ivano Liguori, specialist in health pastoral care, who for years served as a chaplain in a large hospital, our young Dominican editor Father Gabriele Giordano M. Scardocci, great scholar on the theological and ecclesiological level of the problem of disabilities, how many cases that resulted in the disaster have they known? I'll take it too, who as a priest have always been close to and dedicated to assisting the terminally ill and disabled, reiterating at every turn that we priests who have tried their hand at research studies and high theological speculations must have more to do with human material than ever, except to otherwise generate monsters of inhumanity that live in the hyperuranium of ecclesiastical universities, drowned in the world of the unreal and in the spasmodic search for career successes and self-affirmation.

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When we talk about the virtue of Christian humility, we priests and theologians certainly do not mean the beguine or the wrong-necked dream Catholic who pretends not to feel worthy or up to par. Humility is quite another: it is the virtue of the great. Only adults can confront their human limitations every day, thus fleeing the most harmful forms of inhumanity, those who carry their egocentrism or their hypertrophic narcissism above the very value of human life. Here then is the heart surgeon who, despite knowing perfectly the existence of a particularly good colleague who has specialized for years in that specific heart malformation, prefers to say "you can't do anything else ... you can't do more than this ... get over it ...", not to say that the patient could be saved by other hands. The same is true for certain oncologists, or for certain retinal surgery specialists and so on.

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the ophthalmology staff of Grazia Pertile, Sacred Heart Hospital of Negrar

And we want to talk of clinical barons which usually surround themselves with half notches, having to shine with its own light? Or forget as many half notches placed as assistants to distinguished clinicians at the suggestion of companies and banks that finance foundations and research institutes? What happens next, to the sick attracted by the mirage of the great luminary, when they go to his ward where they end up being operated on by some of his mediocre assistants? The world of the clinic is quite different, of the surgery and research of Doctor Grazia Pertile, who does not fear shadows on the star that she is but who has formed a staff of surgeons who are all very good. Another world, in the midst of so many clinical things from the other world that often take you away from the life of this earthly world decades in advance.

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For this I thank God as a man of faith, priest and theologian: making me experience directly on my skin how high the virtue of Christian humility truly is. I understood this while I was memorizing the Roman Missal in Italian and Latin, scared that, even if a similar pathology had arisen in the healthy eye, the two beloved cats of Jorge Facio Lince and mine, Hypatia and Bruno, who live in the house with us, they should have learned to live with a German shepherd, who would wear a headband with a red cross, carrying me around the street with a white cane.

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On my path, between so much scientific and omissive arrogance and pride, but I have known mine Ave Maria, the Woman full of grace, the Doctor and researcher on retinal surgery Grazia Pertile. And I fully understood the theological and salvific value of Christian humility, the one that makes you great and that saves your soul from eternal damnation.

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from Negrar in Valpolicella, 3 June 2021

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THANKS PERTILE EXPLAINS THE AVANT-GARDE TREATMENTS FOR RETINA PATHOLOGIES

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19 replies
  1. father ariel
    Anna Maria says:

    Dear Father Ariel,

    I had just wondered why, right after having you “discovery” for case, Fortunately, through your magazine and one of your recently purchased books, could not find any more of your articles. I sincerely hope that you will soon regain the most satisfying visual functionality. Providential, albeit in the intuition of suffering, the experience of rare humanity and humility that he transmitted to us. He donated, not a few of us, an example of true faith making us understand how in that I confess to God… he knew how to entrust his whole life into divine hands, to still others, a wonderful hope enclosed in a sweet name, in so much “grazia”. He brought me back to mine 22 year old (several years ago) when the head of ENT of a well-known hospital in Rome, perceived the serious and no longer manageable pathology that had struck me, with admirable humility and intimately touched by my young age, personally entrusted me to the miraculous hands of a well-known neurosurgeon from Zurich who gave me “saved”, after six hours of surgery. Yup, precious unforgettable encounters. I take the opportunity father to tell you how pleasant you find, as well as particularly “Elegant” the way in which he expounds his points of view, your reflections and even more interesting the contents (although sometimes appropriately and necessarily characterized by courageous resolve), which in many respects I find revealing. They are for me, in a particular moment of life that leads me to note with bitterness, after long and demanding years of work, how little time, and unsuccessful, devoted to the care of my soul.

    So thank you for the preciousness you transmit to us.

    Now let me give you an exciting and intense musical space that you can listen to in moments of rest; I'm sure you will like it, he will have to listen to everything by placing his ear more carefully in the andanti con motorcycle I n. 3 in C-Sharp Minor op 10. and II, at Charles Valentin Alkan (pianist G. Bellucci)

    I wish you and your brother Father Ivano Liguori a lot of good.

    https://youtu.be/0vqxCC7DBMY

    amf

  2. l'apostata
    l naughty says:

    Good morning Father Ariel. Think how many neocatechumenal catechists, enlightened and discerning, they will have taken advantage of the ailments of Father Ivano Liguori and his.

    I know them all too well. I imagine them screaming at the unfortunate adepts who “God has sent you misfortunes” to convert you, as enemies of the way.

    As for the bogus “Lefevre obedient to SRC” and truly insulting Neocatechumenal, what to say?
    As a good neocatechumen, he shows love for the enemy, ready to turn the other cheek and not resist evil, and pray for those who persecute him.
    A true adult Christian in faith!

    Bravo What is your name, keep it up and you will see where the so-called path takes you.

    To you and to Father Ivano Liguori the best wishes for all good. In the family we have had dramatic situations of ill health, and I know what it means to run into it and suffer irreversible consequences.

    The apostate (dal kikianesimo)

    • Giovanni
      Giovanni says:

      Dear Father Ariel. Unfortunately I found that he was not present on the day 9 c.m. in the Mediaset television studios, I was able to appreciate only the interventions of Mario Adinolfi and above all those of Professor Alessandro Meluzzi, who fought strenuously against the “trap” of the Zan bill. Hoping that his absence was due to ephemeral reasons, I greet you cordially, hoping to see you again on TV as soon as possible. There, too, there is a need for his authority in clerical matters. God bless you ?

  3. Gianbattista
    Gianbattista says:

    Dearest father Ariel,

    I too was genuinely worried about his absence. Now it's all clear. Tomorrow night I will follow her on TV. Of course he must explain to me what method he used to memorize the Missal … (who knows that I can slow down the degeneration of my memory ?)

    I know the Negrar hospital and I must emphasize, as you have already implied, that since it is a religious foundation this clinic is private, only unlike the private palancaie clinics that swarm in this poor Italy, it's a no profit, An example of organization and professional quality, human and why not spiritual too, fused together. A hope of what hospital medical care based on love and science should try to be.

  4. Lefevre obedient to SRC
    Lefevre obedient to SRC says:

    Bel post….first two balls with an eye then (as per tradition) ask for some pennies and then smash us with the posts to follow….
    SIGNOREEEEE SAVE US FROM IMBECILEEEEEEEEE

    • father ariel
      father ariel says:

      Dear Sir,

      as they say in Rome – I tell him, however, in a chastened way – she “it seems to me confonna er behind with holy water“.
      In thanking her for her valuable sensitivity, I point out that you lie blatantly accusing me of … ask for money.
      At the bottom of our pages there have always been the details of our account so that anyone who wants to freely contribute to our work can do so.
      Nobody was asked for money.

      Having said that I add: if you are so sorry about my good surgical outcomes, he can always hire a sorcerer voodoo of Kenya to make me one macumba to get me incurable cancer.
      But I am clothed with the supreme priestly grace, with me the devil does not take root. Because that's what she and people like her believe in: in macumbe, however, hiding with rare wickedness behind Christ and the Saints.

      She used a nickname fake and a non-existent e-mail address to send what he sent. And as a good neocatechumenal he tried to divert attention by bringing up Lefebvre. You see, My dear, I receive terrifying insults from you since I published my book The sect Neocatechumenal

      [see HTTPS://www.amazon.it/setta-neocatecumenale-Leresia-venne-abitare/dp/8894463281/ref=as_sl_pc_tf_til?tag=isoladipatmos-21&linkCode=w00&linkId = bc3789b094484283d1c4b26fa2aafae9&creativeASIN=8894463281]

      You are mundane and repetitive, in your ferocious wickedness, you make yourself recognized immediately. However, as can be seen, we don't censor anyone, not even the insults, if they are addressed to us Fathers of the Island of Patmos. We delete them and do not publish them if the insults are aimed at other people.

      + God bless her + you keep it from harm + lead it redeemed to eternal life

      • Anna
        Anna says:

        there “isolated” the truth…… . in a non-subtle distinction between those who struggle to throw up insults and lies, to ridicule the sufferings of others and those who instead implore the divine blessing, calls for deliverance from evil, and the right way, for the one from whom so much evil originates.

  5. Giovanni Di Guglielmo
    Giovanni Di Guglielmo says:

    I am close to Father Ariel, Also with prayer, and I give you my best wishes!

  6. Fabrizio Giudici
    Fabrizio Giudici says:

    I wish, father ariel, that he can fully recover, together with Father Liguori. I will apologize for the more than obvious invitation… also take the necessary rest.

  7. Giovanni
    Giovanni says:

    Dear Father Ariel,

    now I'll explain why this slowdown in activity on your site. His health problem is that of Father Liguori. And I also explain why the other time (I am a good observer) witnessing his intervention in the broadcast on the Net 4 White area where I will surely see her again on the day 9 June, I had noticed that she often closed one eye, in conclusion, I had noticed an abnormal twitch on her face …

    It is true when you experiment on your own skin it is a whole other story. A close friend of mine because of the retina that detached from one eye years ago, he lost it, from that eye he no longer sees. He and I live in Campania, in Naples, and from what I understand it was not followed well.

    When in his article, dad, I read the doctor's name “Grazia” I also thought that it must have been a grace to meet her.

    I give you my best wishes for a full recovery. To the greater glory of God?

    p.s. I would like to inform you that audio reading is not available, when I click on the play, the YouTube page opens on which, however, it is indicated that the video is private. p.p.s. I'm happy for the cats, I like them a lot too ? ???

    • father ariel
      father ariel says:

      Thanks for everything, Dear John, also for reporting the absence of audio, due to an error by whoever uploaded it by leaving it “private” instead of making it “public”, as was obvious to do.

  8. Ornella Antoniutti
    Ornella Antoniutti says:

    In the meantime, it's always nice that someone can solve a serious health problem. And if you come from Rome to Veneto to treat what has been mistreated at home … be’ let's say my identity as a Venetian, even in half, the other is mixed Friulian-Albanian, can only enjoy.
    Wishes for a quick recovery.

  9. Paul from Genoa
    Paul from Genoa says:

    Best wishes for a good convalescence, father ariel! A friend of mine works as a radiotherapist at the Don Calabria hospital. A story similar to yours also happened to me, thank goodness much less serious, for an eye problem. Not to mention my parents, both missed and both treated by doctors who treated them like paperwork to be done, not as people to help. May they rest in peace!

Comments are closed.